


this bitter earth

by fiertia



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Blue Lions Spoilers, Character Death, Gen, Post-Time Skip, basically i was playing on hard classic and thought of this rip, like. big angst, rating is M bc of violence/description of wounds, sort of dedue/byleth if you squint but that's not the focus of this fic tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 08:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20355796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiertia/pseuds/fiertia
Summary: Post-battle, Byleth struggles with the limitations of her strength.





	this bitter earth

Blood, mud, and trampled bodies - a wretched, nauseating mire. Discarded weapons cleaved from the hands of fallen warriors. The distant groans of trapped, injured soldiers. A broken arrow snapped under the body of the archer who hadn’t had time to let it fly before they were cut down, a javelin piercing their middle. 

It wouldn’t be long before carrion birds descended to ravage the dead.

Byleth stepped over another corpse, boot crunching a broken vulnerary bottle, feeling as though she herself numbered among the dead or dying. She knew she needed to rendezvous with Dedue and make sure her students - she couldn’t ever think of them as anything else - were okay. Dimitri would be no help there, lost as he still was to rage and pain.

In a way, she understood how he kept himself going by sheer force of vengeful spite, now. Fear - a choking, inescapable fear - was the only emotion capable of breaking through her numbed exhaustion to drive her body forward. This battle had been horrible, and she had the uncanny sense that one of her own had been lost. That she had failed utterly. The inevitable sense of doom snared her unbeating heart in a vise. 

She had to make sure everyone was alive and safe.

Then, minutes or hours later, she came across a slight figure in warlock robes, collapsed with a grievous axe wound to the chest. Broken ribs jutted out of the wound at grotesque angles. The weapon, a hand-axe smeared with blood was still embedded in their body. Orange bangs framed a small, round face contorted in shock and pain. Mud was splattered on their cheeks from when they collapsed to the earth. Was that -

No. It couldn’t be.

No. 

_ No. _

Annette, who sang silly songs in that lovely voice of hers about food while she danced. Annette, who always worked harder than everyone, whether at sorcery or chores. Who put a smile on the faces of her friends - even Felix - seemingly without trying. Who still sought to reconcile with her father.

Annette was...

Gone now. Byleth stared at her corpse, world tilting beneath her feet. It couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.

Byleth sank to her knees among the bloody muck with a desperate sob. She - when had the defensive line in front of the mages broken? Her memories of the fight blurred and warped around each other, the cost of reversing time too frequently. When had she allowed Annette to be cut down? Because she couldn’t think of this as anything other than her own failure, immense and final. She was the tactician, and she should have prevented this.

Still, knowing it was futile, Byleth searched inside herself, grasping at the power to reverse the flow of time. 

Nothing. 

All she could find was a gaping emptiness. This battle had been so awful, their pitiful army so outmatched in comparison to Empire forces, that she had used up every drop of her goddess-given gift. By the time she could use it again, it would be too late to save Annette. It probably already was, anyway.

People called Byleth all sorts of epithets. She normally paid them as little attention as she would anything that seemed so trivial. Right now, though,_ The Ashen Demon _ felt appropriate, as did Solon’s bizarre _ Fell Star _ , but _ The Enlightened One _? The Knights of Seiros had taken to calling her that - a sick joke. What good was her enlightenment if she had as much power over time as a hole-ridden bucket did over stopping the flow of water?

Bile coated Byleth’s throat.

She wanted to rage at Sothis, at the Church, at everyone who looked to her for guidance. To scream out that this power seemed pointless if she couldn’t save her friends. She knew it would be fruitless and wouldn’t help anything. And Sothis was...if not gone, then no longer able to chide or comfort her. That echo in her head had been silent for months. A hysterical laugh bubbled up. She was _ supposed _to be Sothis. That’s what Rhea had seemed to expect, at least. Maybe things would be better if she had been obliterated in the escape from Zahras instead of the goddess. How many people would die because she wasn’t good enough to wield the powers of the progenitor god? Who would she fail next?

The pain in her chest crescendoed, and she curled in on herself, knotted green hair draping over the prone body of her - her friend. Her friend who she had failed.

Footsteps squelched in the mud. Byleth should probably ready her dagger and crouch in a defensive stance, but she did not have the will to care. She hadn’t even noticed this person’s approach._ Silly girl, so unobservant. _ She knew it was her imagination, but Sothis’s voice still taunted her. 

_Yes, _ she would agree. _ Another mistake_. _ I’ve amassed a debt of mistakes I can never repay. _

“Professor.” Ah, so Dedue had found her. No doubt he wanted her to go wrangle Dimitri and prevent him from charging off to the next battlefield alone.

“Dedue.” Her voice was toneless.

In his firm baritone, he said, “We...have lost Annette. I am sorry to see that. Have you found any other casualties from among our own?”

Her face, normally calm, contorted into a rare snarl, but if it affected Dedue, he didn’t show it. His stoic mien sent her tumult of emotions into a frothing rage.

“We - we have ‘lost’ Annette? That’s one hell of an understatement. I...It’s my fault, Dedue. She was - there’s an axe in her chest, and you say ‘we have lost Annette?’” The words felt like knives in her throat.

She knew it wasn’t fair to Dedue, but she didn’t care. Fury was better than thinking about what responsibility she had in her friend’s death. 

“We will need to inform Sir Gilbert and arrange for her burial - as we will for many of our soldiers. But Professor, you must find the others and ensure they receive healing. They will want to see you.” His voice remained flat. If she hadn’t taught him and fought alongside him for as long as she had, she would not have detected the barest roughening of his voice. His words, however, did not betray him. 

He was right. 

Many had told her, since her years-late return to her students, tardy for a war she helped start, that her presence boosted morale. 

He was right, but... 

How could she face anyone now? 

“Dedue,” she said. “How would you feel if Dimitri died, and you could have stopped it?”

He didn’t speak for a long moment, and his body didn’t betray any hint of shock at her question. She still crouched on her knees over Annette’s body, looking everywhere but the gruesome wound on her chest.

Then, Dedue stepped closer to Byleth and extended his hand. “I would have failed him, and would consider my life forfeit. He saved me, and I have pledged myself to protect him.”

Yes, she was a failure, she thought, looking down at her gore-streaked hand.

“But my role is to be His Highness’s shield. A shield that does not guard its bearer is worth less than nothing.” He paused. “But you are different. You did not fail Annette, and she was not your sole responsibility. She was a soldier and knew the risks of waging war, Professor. That does not mean she will not be mourned.” His voice seemed to catch in his throat just slightly, reminding Byleth that Dedue and Annette had been friendly, even close, back in their Academy days.

“You cannot be everywhere at one time, and this section of the battlefield is far from the head of the formation you lead,” he continued. His words were unsparing and relentless, measured out with neither pity nor cruelty.

She looked at his gauntleted, blood streaked hand. Spoke to it. “I...I should have been able to save her. The Blue Lions are my responsibility.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the only part of it she could face at the moment. Grief had retreated during her brief, pointless fury, but it waited at the back of her mind, inevitable.

“Professor, you cannot stop death, even if you try. We must also see to the living. Many others need us. Do you feel responsible for them, too? Would you let them see you falter?” Dedue still spoke without betraying frustration or rage or sadness, but Byleth saw how tense the lines of his body were - as if he was holding himself together through sheer force of will.

And that was it, wasn’t it? Byleth needed to be strong - or rather, the bedraggled Kingdom army and its soldiers needed her to be. Dimitri was in no state to forge onward against the Empire. Not like he was right now.

She was not the only one who struggled. She was not the only one who would continue to struggle - to feel utterly defeated even in the wake of a scant martial victory. Rage seeped out of her like blood from a wound, leaving a strange false calm in its absence. 

Byleth finally looked up at Dedue and stared into his eyes. They looked fathomless and grim in the dimming grey haze that hung over the battlefield. He had fresh gashes on his arms and face that would no doubt become part of the network of scars criss-crossing his body.

She noted distantly that his hand was still outstretched toward her.

Left spent in the wake of her extinguished rage and feeling as though she floated outside of her body, Byleth raised her hand to clasp Dedue’s. He helped pull her up to stand, then stepped back, letting her hand fall from his.

_ How did he go on after his people - his family - were brutally massacred? _

“If I had not had Dimitri, I would not have been able to go on.” When Dedue spoke, Byleth realized she had actually voiced her thoughts aloud. His words were exacting and unerringly formal. “He gave me a purpose. You have also given many a purpose. They fight and die because they find your cause worthy.” 

_ You should not let them down_, he left unsaid.

Dedue turned to leave. No doubt he was needed back at Dimitri’s side.

“...and...Professor, if you should need it, I will be there to mourn alongside you,” Dedue said, tapering off into a whisper so quiet and unsteady that she wondered if she imagined his words.

As Dedue walked away from her on his inevitable path back toward the rebel prince, Byleth could only think of someone has to endure to forge a spine strong enough to withstand wars.

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write something cute and this happened instead, yikes.


End file.
